UK cycling legend ‘was sexually groomed’ as teenager
British cycling icon Sir Bradley Wiggins claims to have been sexually groomed by a former coach as a teenager and added that he "buried" the trauma due to a lack of trusted figures to confide in.
The five-time Olympic gold medalist made his allegations in a Men's Health UK interview, and stated: "I was groomed by a coach when I was younger – I was about 13 – and I never fully accepted that."
Admitting that the ordeal "impacted me as an adult" and that he had "buried" it, Wiggins also revealed that he could not confide in his stepfather who would allegedly beat him and mock him for wearing cycling apparel.
"My stepfather was quite violent to me, he used to call me a f****t for wearing Lycra and stuff, so I didn’t think I could tell him," Wiggins said.
"I was such a loner. I just wanted to get out of the environment. I became so insular. I was quite a strange teenager in many ways and I think the drive on the bike stemmed from adversity."
His relationship with his biological father, Australian cyclist Gary Wiggins who passed away in 2008 after a fight at a house party, was complicated too and a possible source of life-long depression which contributed to a difficult childhood.
"It was definitely to do with my dad," Wiggins conceded, when asked what issues he had tried to run from and escape through cycling.
"Never getting answers when he was murdered in 2008. He left us when I was little, so I met him for the first time when I was 18. We rekindled some kind of relationship but then we didn’t speak for the last couple of years before he was murdered."
"He was my hero," Wiggins continued. "I wanted to prove myself to him. He was a good cyclist – he could have been really good – but he was a wasted talent. He was an alcoholic, a manic depressive, quite violent and he took a lot of amphetamines and drugs back then."
Wiggins enjoyed far more success than his father, but admitted to encountering problems coping with the pressure and his newfound fame when winning the Tour de France and the London Olympics time trial in 2012.
"After winning the Tour de France, then winning at the Olympics, life was never the same again," Wiggins recalled.
"I was thrust into this fame and adulation that came with the success … I’m an introverted, private person. I didn’t know who ‘me’ was, so I adopted a kind of veil – a sort of rock-star veil. It wasn’t really me … It was probably the unhappiest period of my life," Wiggins said.
"Everything I did was about winning for other people, and the pressures that came with being the first British winner of the Tour. I really struggled with it."
Wiggins, aged 41, retired from professional cycling in December 2016 after a fifth successive medal-winning appearance at the Olympic Games in Rio where he scooped gold in the team pursuit.
